Short Stay Apartments in Melbourne Should End
Short stay apartments in Melbourne are now offering as little as two nights in residential apartment buildings.
Our view is simple. Short stays in Melbourne of as little two days, in residential apartment environments, are self-evidently wrong. Owner-occupiers and long-term business residents, should not be subjected to the disturbance of the comings and goings of people with highly variable behaviour standards and no obligations to the community they temporarily live in. The gravity of the problem is exposed in this ABC news article.
Short Stay in Barcelona a Crisis
This podcast by the BBC describes the kind of social dysfunction which is being created by locating large numbers of tourists, in residential areas of Barcelona.
And Other Cities
This writer, talking with a resident of Lisbon in Portugal, was told that the heart of the city was being ripped out by short stay apartments. Alfama, Lisbon’s oldest quarter, was being transformed, from being the traditional low-cost residential area that locals could afford, to a kind of tourist ghetto, cultureless and relentlessly commercial. A similar story to Barcelona and perhaps typical of many attractive locations.
Meanwhile, the Melbourne short stay controversy is side-stepped by the Victorian government. Despite short stay apartments being used as temporary brothels and bases for drug distribution and manufacture, the government turns a blind eye, regardless of the justifiable concerns of the police. New laws have been introduced by the Victorian government to help combat party pads and bad behaviour by short-stay residents, allowing compensations up to $2000 for neighbours and fines of up to $1100 for noisy or destructive guests, but is this really enough?
Our conversations with the management of premium buildings confirm that they have to deal with the despicable behaviour of short stayers on a daily basis. It is simply unacceptable.
We support moves by Owners Corporations, Building Management and pressure groups in Melbourne, to only allow stays of 30 days or more.
A new CBD residents group “We Live Here” has called for a ban on all short stays in Melbourne of under 30 days in residential towers. We wish them well.
We see ourselves, Convido Corporate Housing, as part of the solution, business travellers that stay a minimum of 30 days are responsible well behaved members of the building’s community.
